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Messianic Prophecies

Psalms 31:5

This passage comes from the wider catalog — a broader, more lightly curated list than the core set. Both readings are shown as peers; GEBible takes no side.

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Psalms 31:5

Into your hand I commend my spirit. You redeem me, Yahweh, God of truth.

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In you, Yahweh, I take refuge. Let me never be disappointed. Deliver me in your righteousness.

Bow down your ear to me. Deliver me speedily. Be to me a strong rock, a house of defense to save me.

For you are my rock and my fortress, therefore for your name’s sake lead me and guide me.

Pluck me out of the net that they have laid secretly for me, for you are my stronghold.

Into your hand I commend my spirit. You redeem me, Yahweh, God of truth.

I hate those who regard lying vanities, but I trust in Yahweh.

I will be glad and rejoice in your loving kindness, for you have seen my affliction. You have known my soul in adversities.

You have not shut me up into the hand of the enemy. You have set my feet in a large place.

Have mercy on me, Yahweh, for I am in distress. My eye, my soul, and my body waste away with grief.

For my life is spent with sorrow, my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity. My bones are wasted away.

The counter-reading

How this passage is read within its own context.

On the critical reading, Psalm 31:5 is a statement of trust set within an individual lament, and the notable feature is that the Gospels assign Jesus different final words: Mark 15:34 draws on Psalm 22:1 (abandonment) while Luke 23:46 draws on Psalm 31:5 (trust). These divergent selections are seen to serve distinct theological programs, Mark portraying a death in anguish and Luke a death in serenity. On this view the disagreement reveals each evangelist's compositional method of choosing scriptural language to characterize the death, pointing to literary shaping rather than a fixed, historically uniform saying. The reading treats the psalm's presence as authorial selection, not predictive fulfillment.

The fulfillment reading

How this passage is read as pointing to the Messiah.

On the messianic-fulfillment reading, Jesus at the point of death deliberately prays the words of Psalm 31:5, entrusting his spirit to the Father, as recorded in Luke 23:46, and so embodies the righteous sufferer's trust the psalm expresses. Proponents note that Jesus was deeply immersed in the Psalter, which supplied his prayer vocabulary, so praying its words at death is fulfillment enacted naturally. They add that within the Seven Last Words tradition there is no conflict in his expressing both anguish and trust across the hours of crucifixion. On this view Luke's report reflects an actual utterance in which the psalm is realized.

How the New Testament uses this passage

Each entry names how the New Testament author draws on the passage — a direct quotation, an allusion, an echo, or a typological reading. An echo or an allusion is not the same as a prediction; the label says which is which.

  • Luke 23:46 Direct quotation

    Luke 23:46 places the words of Psalm 31:5 verbatim on Jesus' lips at the crucifixion, a marked, near-verbatim citation of the psalm.